Barely Breathing
by Lady Callista
Summary: Orihime is miserable after returning from Hueco Mundo, and watches the rain while thinking morbidly of her nightmares. But a quiet chat with Ichigo helps her to relax. IchiHime. 'After the Winter War' series, set during "I'll Stand By You"


Disclaimer: Kubo is god, Kubo is king, Tite Kubo owns everything. (Well, him and everyone associated with Bleach manga/anime.) I own nothing but my own storyline. If I owned them, there would be more actual romance instead of just hints of it.

AN: I know I'm supposed to be writing the next chapter of Until the Last Breath, and that I have a few other in-progress and promised stories that I should work on, but this evil little plot bunny dropped by the other night, and refused to leave. And IchiHime were near the top of the 'which one-shot do you want' poll, so even though I'm currently doing a main story with them I decided to do this as well. This is set during "I'll Stand By You," during the week after the first night he holds her as they sleep, but before their first kiss. Not that you need to have read that, as this story stands just fine on its own. It's set a few weeks after Ichigo rescues Orihime from Hueco Mundo, and the end of the Winter War. He's been staying with her at night because she's having nightmares and is afraid to be alone. It's a little depressing, but like I said it just got stuck in my head. And it does have bits of cuteness. Please let me know what you think anyway.

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><p><strong><span>Barely Breathing<span>**

**By Lady Callista**

_OoOoOoOoOoOoO_

"_Walking, working, barely breathing, __My thoughts, far away_

_Heart aching, mind racing, __Sleep does not come easily, nor last long.…"_

_~Peter Winstanley_

_OoOoOoOoOoOoO_

The noise was deafening. It was like a zillion little balls hitting the roof all at once, and it had been like that for hours now.

Orihime knew, because she had been sitting in the windowsill since the first drop fell, watching the rain. Other than the kido-assisted rain that had fallen after the war ended, when she had been too busy running around helping people to think of it, it was the first time she had seen the rain since she got back.

_One. Two. Three. Four._

Since she came back from… well, she didn't want to think about that too much. She had tried telling herself it was all a dream, or at least that was what she tried to think of whenever the thoughts came racing into her head. Whenever the nightmares came. But it didn't work. It had been all too real.

But at the moment, she wasn't really thinking about anything. She was just perched sideways in the windowsill, staring out the window, trying to remember the last time she had seen it rain. It hadn't rained down there…

And she was counting her breaths.

She knew Tatsuki worried about her, although she had only brought it up twice. And she had caught both Ishida and Sado casting worried glances at her from time to time, although neither of them had said anything to her yet. And Ichigo was obviously worried about her, she thought as she turned her head enough to see the figure propped in the corner by the head of her bed, sleeping with his chin resting on his chest. She couldn't blame them for worrying, but at the moment she couldn't care.

The only thing she really cared about was counting her breaths.

_In and out. In and out._

_One. Two. Three. Four. _

Because if Orihime stopped counting, she wasn't sure if she would remember to breath. She wasn't sure she would remember _why_ she had to breath. And once she stopped, she didn't know if she would be able to start again.

She missed the numbness and blurred memories of the first hours after the final battle of the war had ended. The first thing she had thought as Ichigo shifted back from his full Hollow form was that they had won. That was really all she had known.

She had acted like a robot, going where she was told, healing the people she had been asked to help. She spent a long time sitting beside Ichigo, healing him and just looking at him. For so long she had thought that she would never see him again, and as long as she sat with him, and as long as she had to help people, and had people around her, she had been mostly okay.

_One. Two. Three. Four._

Then the day had ended, and Ishida had walked her home, as Chad and Ichigo were both still unconscious at Urahara's.

He had seen her hesitation as she put her hand out to touch her apartment door, and offered gently, "I can take you back to Urahara's. Or you can stay in the guest bedroom at my father's. You don't have to be alone right now."

And Orihime had forced a smile and a laugh, "Don't worry about me, Ishida-kun, I'll be fine. It's nice to be home."

He clearly hadn't believed her, but he had allowed her to go inside alone.

She had walked into her bedroom without bothering to turn on any of the lights, and suddenly the pain, and the rage, and the sorrow and the loneliness and fear and despair that had been her life for she didn't know how long had finally hit her, and she had collapsed on her bed, sobbing. Alone, with nothing to distract her from the memories, curled up in the dark she had become so accustomed to, Orihime had broken down. And hated herself for doing it. It was her fault he had died down there, and she didn't have a right to grieve.

_In and out. In and out._

She didn't know how long she had cried that first night, but was sure it had been hours. And after the first nightmare had woken her after less than an hour of exhausted sleep she had cried more. The image of Ichigo dying had replayed through her mind over and over.

Orihime glanced across the room again just to reassure herself that Ichigo was still there, barely noticing that tears were streaming down her face, although not nearly as harshly as that first night.

His presence reassured her, and allowed her to sleep, most of the time. But the nightmare earlier had been particularly bad, and she had heard the rain starting up just as she had woken up.

_One. Two. Three. Four._

She thought about school the next day, wondering briefly why it seemed like more of a dream to her than anything else. She walked around with a fake smile on her face, saying all the right things to people, making all the right movements, but she really wasn't doing it for herself anymore. She wasn't really living yet. She was just doing it to try and keep everyone from worrying.

She tried to think about the things that used to make her happy, tried to imagine what the little green men were doing at the moment, or how confused they had been when she vanished. But that just made her mind flash back to her cell, and the one tiny window…

She tried again, looking out the wide window at the soothing rain and trying to imagine how she could make herself into a robot, so that she could protect herself. She flinched as she heard an echo of Ichigo asking her if she was okay after he had been the one who had died.

She forced her mind to go blank, she had gotten somewhat good at that over the past few months, and slowly the tears stopped. She looked out into the night, and worked harder than she had ever worked at anything to simply not think. Not remember. Not feel.

But she did remember one thing. She still counted her breaths.

_In and out. In and out._

She couldn't forget that.

_One. Two. Three. Four._

She counted, and she watched the rain. And one thought suddenly popped into her head, and she whispered words that seemed to come from a different life. "If I were like the rain, that joins the sky and earth which otherwise do not touch, could I…"

"Orihime, are you okay?" Ichigo's voice came quietly from behind her.

She had been so lost in her thoughts she hadn't even heard him wake up. Now she turned from the windowsill to face him, watching as he rose from where he had been seated beside her bed and crossed the room to her.

Orihime slid off the windowsill, but couldn't take the look she saw in his eyes as he crossed to her. He was blaming himself again. She turned to put her back to him, her eyes tracking the raindrops as they fell outside the window. His hand landed on her shoulder, and Orihime suddenly inhaled with a gasp.

She had forgotten to count her breaths. She had forgotten to keep breathing. She started counting again even as his other hand came up to touch her other shoulder. She could feel the heat of his body in a line down her back. She remembered what it had felt like the night he had held her as they slept.

And just in time, she remembered to keep counting.

_One. Two. Three. Four._

"Did you have another nightmare?" Ichigo's voice was gentle, and at that moment he wanted nothing more than to take her into his arms. It seemed like that was all he had thought about in the days since it had happened. Falling asleep with her in his arms. Waking with their faces just inches apart.

But she seemed so fragile, he was almost afraid she would shatter if he gripped her too tightly. Even the hands on her shoulders were so light he was barely touching her.

She didn't want to admit it, but she couldn't lie to him either. Unfortunately, what came out wasn't any better. "I can't remember the last time I saw rain."

_In and out. In and out._

Ichigo's hands tightened slightly on her shoulders, and his thumbs stroked lightly up the sides of her neck before he realized what he was doing and stopped. But he couldn't make himself move his hands. "I remember one of the first times I saw you with Tatsuki, before I knew who you were. She was standing under an umbrella looking exasperated, and you were dancing in the rain. You were spinning around, laughing, looking like you didn't have a care in the world."

"I wish I remembered what that felt like." The words slipped out before she could stop them.

Ichigo expected to feel once again the anger at what had been done to her, or his own sense of failure for not having protected her better. Instead, her words brought out a strange longing. "So do I."

_One. Two. Three. Four._

"Do you ever wish we were just normal kids?" Orihime whispered after a moment of silence.

"I've _never_ really been a normal kid." Ichigo said just as softly. "And if I had been, I wouldn't have most of the friends I have right now. What about you? Do you wish you hadn't come with me to rescue Rukia? Do you wish you had just forgotten everything?"

"How _could_ I wish that?" Orihime whispered as a few tears trailed down her cheeks. "I wouldn't have any of you. You… you could even be dead. Now, if I could forget just certain things and not others…"

He heard her start crying harder, and his heart clenched at his helplessness. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know how to help her. Everything he had read said that people who had gone through traumatic things were supposed to talk about them, but she seemed too fragile right now for him to ask her to remember more, let alone expect her to talk about it. The memory of how hard she had cried when he asked her to explain the part of his fight with Ulquiorra that he didn't remember still haunted him.

"I don't know how to help you. I don't know what to do…"

Orihime heard the failure and hopelessness in his desperate whisper, and her heart broke for him. He _was _helping, just by being there. But she wasn't going to get better overnight.

A blush rose to her cheeks even as tears still trailed down them, and she hesitantly reached up and took one of his hands from her shoulder, shifting her body back slightly and wrapping both his arm and her own around her stomach.

Ichigo settled his hand on her hip, gripping ever so lightly, even as his other hand slid from her shoulder and moved under her chin to hold the other shoulder, both arms now wrapped around her as he shifted closer to her.

Orihime shifted just a touch more, until her back rested against his chest, and let out a small sigh as she tilted her head and rested it on his strong shoulder. "You are helping."

"But…"

"Just your being here helps. Yes, I'm still having nightmares. No, I can't talk about them yet." Orihime could still feel a few tears trailing from her closed eyes, but in his arms she could almost forget about everything bad that had happened. "But every time I wake up from one of them, I can look over and know that you're there. That I'm safe. And that helps more than you can understand."

Orihime's heart gave the tiniest little leap as his lips ghosted over her temple and continued into her hair, ending where her barrettes normally sat. His voice sounded incredibly intimate as he spoke softly directly above her ear.

"You'll always be safe with me."

_OoOoOoOoOoO_

Orihime woke as sunlight filtered over her futon, and for a moment she was confused by the fact that she was _in_ her futon. The last thing she remembered had been sitting by the window, counting each breath she took, terrified on one level that it would be her last. Then Ichigo had woken, and they had spoken, and he had held her.

She realized with embarrassment that she must have fallen asleep in his arms, and her head jerked to the left, where he had spent the past few nights propped against the wall. But he wasn't there.

Then abruptly she felt the warmth of a hand covering her own.

Orihime turned her head towards the right, and found Ichigo lying on a blanket next to her futon, still asleep. She looked down at where his hand covered hers, and a small smile came to her face as she carefully shifted her hand until they were holding hands properly.

Her gaze flicked up to his face, so relaxed in sleep, looking so much younger and carefree than he had ever been allowed to be. She rested her hand ever so lightly over his heart, not wanting to wake him but wanting to feel his heartbeat under her fingers.

She started counting the beats without thought, which is when she suddenly realized that she hadn't been counting since she woke up. And she was still breathing. That was something at least.

Then Ichigo shifted slightly in his sleep, and he murmured her name in a low, loving voice.

She had to start counting her breaths again, but for a completely different reason than the night before.

She leaned over carefully, her lips ghosting over his cheek before she laid back down quickly. She scent of him, from that close… She had to focus. To concentrate.

_In and out. In and out._

Her heart jumped as his hand twitched in hers, and he mumbled her name again. He was dreaming of her! She thought of a few of the times she had dreamed of him, before all of her dreams had turned to nightmares, and a blush rose to her cheeks.

Squeezing her eyes shut to resist the urge to turn her head and stare at him, she tried to go back to sleep. Which was really hard when all she wanted to do was kiss him. She started counting again, sighing a while later when she reached five hundred and was still awake.

Finally she turned on to her side, sliding her hand back over his heart.

_One. Two. Three. Four. _

And timing her breaths to the beating of his heart, she drifted gently back to sleep.

The End

AN: A little depressing, I know, but it got stuck in my head, and kept getting in the way of Until the Last Breath's next chapter. It's really hard to write a wedding when you're thinking depressing things like this. Hopefully now that this is out of the way the next part of that will be our soon, and in the mean time I hope you enjoyed this IchiHime moment. Review, onegai?


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